Recently I saw a picture in which someone referred to our “brutiful” world. I love that word. It says perfectly what I think about this place we Christians call our temporary home. We sometimes tend to think that the world is worse than it’s ever been. But it’s not. It’s always been brutal and lovely at the very same time. It’s just that there are more of us now, in more places, and we all have front row seats to the brutality like never before.

At the beginning of time as we know it, God created the world and called it good. And although we’ve certainly made a big mess out of it, in some ways it’s still good. The world is full of people that God loves. Even after sin, God SO LOVED the world that He did not condemn it, but chose to ransom it. The world is decaying and yet it’s moving closer to becoming new. As we ponder our lives in Christ, we do not see the world as those who have no hope. My recent bible study has helped me to think more about what it means that believers are “children of the day.” Part of it means that we are children of another World and of another Day. A world and a day in which there is no more darkness of any kind.

For now, though, the world can be a scary place. When darkness falls, we can especially become afraid and anxious. Whatever worries we have seem so big at night. But as children of the day, we don’t have to fear the darkness. And as we live in Him, we are always in His light … and we live in light of that coming Day. Even now, I walk everyday in this dark world with the Father of Lights. He reveals Himself to me through His word, which has become a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. As I walk in the light as He is in the light, there’s so much more to life in Him. The Light of the World is someone I know, yet is far beyond my comprehension. He is not bound by time but gives us time to repent. He can be angry at sin and so very sad at the same time.
And I love that even though it’s a great mystery, darkness is as light to Him.

As children of the Day, even in the midst of the chaos of this world, we are able to walk daily in the overwhelming light of God’s love and truth. We have no need to fear the darkness, for in Him there is no darkness at all.
John tells us that God is love and that He is light. His love is demonstrated by His grace, offered to us even while we were sinners, living in and as a part of this world. His light is demonstrated by His truth, revealed to us in His word. One bible commentator put it like this: God is the source and measure of all that is true; nothing is truly understood until it is understood in the light of God. God is light. God is truth. He is the source of all that is true and whatever is true is true because it conforms to Him.

Martin Luther said: “There are two days in my calendar: This day and that Day.” He had learned to live in the present and yet he recognized that there would be a Day. The Day. The God who created the world also has a plan to recreate it one day. Today, on this day, we woke up in this broken, brutal, beautiful world. One day, that day, He will make all things new. And in between this day and that day, He is sitting on the throne, in light and love.